Initial applicants for any license or permit must complete both an Ohio criminal background check and an FBI criminal background check. These checks need to be less than 365 days old to be considered valid for licensing purposes.

Educators who are renewing a license or permit and have lived continuously in the State of Ohio for the previous five years, and have a BCI background check on file with ODE, will need to complete only an FBI criminal background check once every five years.

Educators who are renewing a license or permit and have not lived continuously in the state for the past five years will need to complete both a BCI and FBI background check.

Educators with multiple licenses only need to submit the required background checks when they are applying for the renewal of the license or permit that is of the longest duration.

Educators who hold a permanent certificate are required to submit the required background checks once every five years. Permanent certificate holders who have lived continuously in Ohio for those five years, however, will only need to submit FBI background checks.

All individuals holding a license, certificate or permit will have their results automatically sent to ODE, Teacher Certification as well as to the employing school district. Non-licensed individuals will have their results sent only to the employing school district. An individual may also request a copy of his/her results.

Applicants who are the subject of a national fingerprint-based criminal history record check have certain rights. To view these right, please examine the Noncriminal Justice Applicant's Rights document in the box at the right of this page.